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A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

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Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#181

Post by gjm11 »

tedunangst wrote: post #171
jafaku wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News flash: A transaction requires a buyer and a seller. If you bought Bitcoin, someone else sold Bitcoin.

That doesn't account for an imbalance in the number of potential buyers and sellers. It's very easy to buy a house for $100 million. Go to your real estate agent and say "Here's a $100 million. Buy me a house." It is, however, considerably harder to sell a house for $100 million.

I'm not convinced.

It's only easy to buy a house for $100M if you have $100M you can spare for house-buying. And then you only get to choose from the rather limited range of $100M houses that are available for sale.

Similarly, you only get to sell a house for $100M if you have a house that nice to sell. And then you only get to sell to the rather limited range of people willing to buy a house for $100M.

But perhaps I've misunderstood. If you happen to have $100M burning a hole in your pocket, it's easy to buy a house that would normally cost $1M with it, because most people with $1M houses will happily sell them for $100M. But the parallel to that is that if you happen to have a house that would normally cost $100M, it's easy to sell it for $1M. Which it would be.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#182

Post by chegra »

aianus wrote: post #175
kens wrote: post #156

My prediction is that bitcoins are midway through a short-lived bubble and then rapidly fall to approximately 0, and in a few years people will look back with the disbelief now reserved for pets.com. The hype - get in right now and get rich, or you'll miss out and kick yourself - reminds me of 1999. My in-laws were talking about bitcoins yesterday, so bitcoins are getting the attention of the public at large; I take…

I wish there was a reputable market for shorting bitcoins. It'd be nice to earn some interest on my long position while providing the naysayers a chance to bet against it. It'd also help with the volatility.

A business opportunity.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#183

Post by eliwjones »

Bitcoin is "doomed" to fail (as a currency) by the simple fact that the supply is capped at 21 million.

This relegates it to the status as a "virtual collectible" (as someone so humorously put it).

Maybe Bitcoin 2.0 will be smart and remove a cap (or build in the ability to allow itself to float).. but Bitcoin as it is isn't flexible enough.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#184

Post by jpindar »

rimantas wrote: post #152
Aqueous wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are applying old-world money ideas to something that is so new that we don't have useful models yet for deciding how it will behave, thinking that they do apply without loss of content. The rules of supply and demand apply, sure, but none of the other common-sense intuitions about how money works. BitCoins don't have any resistance to movement, or very little. Physical money does. This means the difference betwe…

Did you forget about wire transfers? At least where I live it is possible to live without touching physical money for a long long time, we have pretty advanced e-banking and m-banking (and we never had checkbooks). Yes id does involve the bank, but from the end user perspective it is almost no overhead and sometimes even saves the trouble. Is stuff like direct-debit even possible with bitcoin?

I haven't heard of any, but AFAIK there's nothing preventing someone from writing a wallet that allows automated payments or the equivalent of direct-debit, with or without the involvement of a bank.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#185

Post by M4v3R »

stevewilhelm wrote: post #178
mindstab wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they can sure set them, and then no one would use them. do you not understand money? what are you, the owner of 100btc going to do: a) buy $100usd worth of goods at ebay directly b) cash out at a proper exchange for $100,000usd, then buy $100usb worth of goods on ebay and have $99,900usd left over? or cash out ONE btc for $1000usd, buy $100usd of goods and have $900 usd left over AND 99btc? How do you expect any even…

In any financial exchange, both parties, the buyer and seller, need to come to agreement on a price. Given the fact that current BTC to USD exchange volume is fairly small, it wouldn't take that many large global goods and service providers pegging their BTC/USD exchange rate to cause the speculation market to collapse. Those that recently bought their Bitcoins at $900 would sell below the current high price to reali…

They couldn't. If you pegged the price to one, there wouldn't be enough units for everyone to buy anything they want. Remember that there are only 12 million of them, and only ~20 million will be ever available. Tying their value to one would mean that the size of whole economy would be only 20 million USD, which is pocket money on a global scale.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#187

Post by dllthomas »

brador wrote: post #107
Aqueous wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are applying old-world money ideas to something that is so new that we don't have useful models yet for deciding how it will behave, thinking that they do apply without loss of content. The rules of supply and demand apply, sure, but none of the other common-sense intuitions about how money works. BitCoins don't have any resistance to movement, or very little. Physical money does. This means the difference betwe…

That's because Bitcoins are relatively easy to buy and very difficult to cash out into real currency. Once enough people see how hard it is to liquidate their Bitcoins back to USD the realization will follow.

I'll happily cash your bitcoins out into real currency at ten cents a bitcoin.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#188

Post by crististm »

gjm11 wrote: post #181
tedunangst wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't account for an imbalance in the number of potential buyers and sellers. It's very easy to buy a house for $100 million. Go to your real estate agent and say "Here's a $100 million. Buy me a house." It is, however, considerably harder to sell a house for $100 million.

I'm not convinced. It's only easy to buy a house for $100M if you have $100M you can spare for house-buying. And then you only get to choose from the rather limited range of $100M houses that are available for sale. Similarly, you only get to sell a house for $100M if you have a house that nice to sell. And then you only get to sell to the rather limited range of people willing to buy a house for $100M. But perhaps I…

The point is the liquidity of houses is less than liquidity of cash. Likewise, the liquidity of bitcoins is less than liquidity of dollars. You can easily buy bitcoins(houses) if you have the money, but the reverse is not true.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#190

Post by dwaltrip »

kens wrote: post #156

My prediction is that bitcoins are midway through a short-lived bubble and then rapidly fall to approximately 0, and in a few years people will look back with the disbelief now reserved for pets.com. The hype - get in right now and get rich, or you'll miss out and kick yourself - reminds me of 1999. My in-laws were talking about bitcoins yesterday, so bitcoins are getting the attention of the public at large; I take…

There is no such thing as intrinsic value, all value is subjective, only existing if there is a conscious being that can provide a valuation. These beings have shifting, impermanent, prefecerences, and non-uniform preferences. The many factors which affect their considerations also change quite frequently: a glass of water is worth very little when I'm boating across a large pristine lake, yet it is worth an enormous sum as I stumble across a scorched desert.

BTW, the majority of gold's current market price does not stem from industrial/ornamental usage, but a collective "delusion" of monetary value (that has lasted thousands of years). Not to say gold shouldn't have any monetary value, as it is one of most useful materials in that regard. But the intrinsic value argument against bitcoin seems silly to me, given the story of gold.

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